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On Marshall Rogers and the definitive Batman: an interview with American comic book writer Steve Englehart

2014; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 6; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/21504857.2014.943412

2150-4865

Jeffery Klaehn,

Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism

Steve Englehart wrote scripts for eight issues of Detective Comics (#469–#476) which were published by DC Comics between May 1977 and August 1978. The first two issues were pencilled by Walter Simonson and inked by Al Milgrom, and the remaining six issues were pencilled by Marshall Rogers and inked by Terry Austin. The entire run was reprinted by DC Comics in a ‘deluxe format’, five-issue, limited series entitled Shadow of the Batman, which was published throughout 1985/1986. The cover of the first issue of Shadow of the Batman announced the stories as ‘Batman Classics’, and each issue of the series featured new wraparound cover artwork by Marshall Rogers and Terry Austin. This was apropos given that many had considered the Englehart–Rogers–Austin collaboration to be synonymous with the ‘definitive’ interpretation of Batman since these issues were first published. Stories from the eight-issue run have been reprinted in both volumes of The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told and also in The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told collection. And for almost four decades Marshall Rogers has been widely regarded as one of the very best Batman artists. This interview explores the contributions that Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers have made to Batman and his universe and answers the perplexing question of why the definitive Batman writer–artist team did no further work on Batman.